Inkjet printers with Dual Drop Weight (DDW) can be operated using high drop weight (HDW) nozzles and low drop weight (LDW) nozzles depending on the desired speed and quality of printing. For example, by doubling the number of activators, such as for example piezo activators or resistors used to fire nozzles or by otherwise modifying the activators, the additional or modified activators can be used in several ways to build different types of printheads. One possibility is to have half of the nozzles eject larger drops (HDW nozzles) than the other half (LDW nozzles).
For this purpose, address data protocols can be used to provide methods of addressing the activators, such as to enable different firing order and firing frequency when operating the nozzles. In an example, the data interface to a printhead die including nozzles may support addressing all activators up to a certain frequency, such as 72 KHz, or half of the activators at double frequency, such as 144 KHz.
Thus, two print modes may be provided: a high quality mode (72 KHz) that uses both the high drop weight (HDW) and the low drop weight (LDW) nozzles and a high speed mode (144 KHz) that fires just high drop weight (HDW) nozzles doubling the firing frequency. In the high speed mode, the low drop weight (LDW) nozzles are out of cap without firing any drop. In order to avoid decap issues, print spit bars can be arranged between image frames for cleaning the nozzles. For example, print spit bars can be provided in the form of bands on a print target, such as for example print medium, located between and along the side of frames containing printed images. The nozzles eject ink inside the print spit bars such as to clean the nozzles and avoid nozzle clogging or variations in the amount of ink ejected by the nozzles, without affecting the frames including the images.